Taking part in this afternoon’s episode of The Boardroom, which focused on the medical sector and the medical economy in relation to COVID, Professor Victor Grech said realistically, authorities would be “ecstatic” if a vaccine was rolled out in Malta by the third quarter of 2021.

Prof Grech is a professor of paediatrics and manager of paediatric cardiology services at Mater Dei Hospital in Malta. He has a PhD in paediatric cardiology, a second PhD in English Language and is finalising a third dissertation that deals with factors that influence the sex ratio at birth.

Asked about hopes for a vaccine, which, as Malta comes to grips with another spike of COVID, is increasingly looking like the only real solution to the world’s economic and health woes, he explained that it typically takes 10 years for a vaccine to be completed from inception to launch.

He stressed that for Ebola, they cracked the process down to five years.

“With COVID there are at least 100 vaccines in development and billions have been thrown at the problem, so I am confident that it will be a smaller fraction than five years. The question is whether it will be this year or next year – also, once we have a vaccine, how effective will it be? How long will it work?”

Prof Grech said the best case scenario is the vaccine works similarly to the influenza one, meaning it can be taken annually together with the influenza vaccine.

“Let’s say we get an effective vaccine by the end of the year…that is tried and tested till the end of the year. The problem will be distributing billions of doses – there aren’t enough glass vials in the world. One solution may be to employ multiple dose vials as they did in the past.

“Another problem is that America has made contracts to get the first available vaccines – the silver lining being that in America and many developed countries, there are many who would not take the vaccine.

“Realistically, in Malta, we are thinking we may have a vaccine in hand by the third quarter of next year – and this is realism. If this comes before the third quarter of the year, we will all be ecstatic,” he said.

Prof Grech forms part of the Medical Association of Malta, the country’s doctors’ union. It has recently threatened to strike in response to a spike in COVID cases, including two clusters stemming from separate mass gatherings. The MAM appealed with the Government to limit public gatherings to groups of 10 people. The state has responded by limiting public gatherings based on the size of a venue, with the ratio of one person per four square metres.

Prof Grech highlighted the challenges in ensuring groups remain socially distant at Government sanctioned mass events, under the new standards.

“It is plain and simple – it is not possible for people to distance themselves at weddings or events where alcohol is involved,” he cautioned.

Prof Grech also took umbrage with the type of tourism being attracted through the promotion of parties, saying such tourists are young, have little interest in seeing Malta’s sights or spending money in Maltese businesses.